1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic components carrier. More specifically, an electronic components carrier is disclosed that collects electronic components dropping from a circuit board.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the rapid development of electronics, the design of electronic products frequently changes. Electronic components mounted on a circuit board within the products become obsolete and are often simply thrown away due to the high manpower costs of recycling them, except for expensive components such as memories and processors. In addition to environmental problems that this leads to, a great deal of resources are wasted.
There are two methods from removing electronic components from a circuit board according to prior art. One is to the use of a soldering device that is specifically designed to heat small outlined integrated circuits (SOIC) of various sizes having less than 64 pins. When solder on the component melts, the component is removed from the circuit board. The other method involves using a heated air injector with a particularly designed air grilleto heat SOICs of various sizes, and to heat SOICs in ball grid array packages (BGA packages). When solder on the component has melted, the component is taken from the circuit board.
But these methods from removing electronic components from a circuit board according to prior art have several disadvantages. Take, for example, the heated air injector:
a)A high cost is associated with the equipment used for detachment. Due to the various sizes possible with SOICs, a heated air injector requires many corresponding mouths for removing such components.
b)A slow operational speed in detachment. Takinga 17 mm SOIC as an example, a practiced operator needs 30 seconds on average to remove the SOIC from the circuit board. This 30 seconds is simply for the single SOIC, and does not include the additional time required to remove other electronic components.
c)Difficulty in temperature control. A primary factor of when removing components with a heated air injector is whether or not the heated air flow from the mouth of the injector is steady in temperature and flow. The temperature of a heated air flow from typical heat air injectors is between 250xc2x0 C.-600xc2x0 C. Over-heated or under-heated air flows can lead to failure to remove a SOIC from a circuit board, and furthermore does harm to the SOIC.
d)Failing when removing certain types of electronic components. Because some components are made from plastic, such as connectors and switches, they are easily affected by heated air flows, and can become so fragile that that they are unable to withstand irregular external forces. When taken from the circuit board, the failure rate of such components is quite high.
e)When electronic components, such as SOICs, are removed from a circuit board, because of carelessness or lack of skill of the operator, the SOICs are frequently unusable due to distorted or bent pins, despite the fact that so much time and energy have been spent attempting to carefully remove the SOIC.
It is therefore a primary objective of the claimed invention to solve the above-mentioned problems by introducing an electronic components carrier for easily removing electronic components from a circuit board.
The claimed invention is an electronic components carrier installed in a reflow oven. The electronic components carrier includes a frame, a circuit board clamp fixed on the frame for clamping a circuit board, a vibrating device for vibrating the circuit board while the circuit board is carried through a reflow oven and the temperature inside the flow oven has reached a predetermined temperature, and a collector installed on the frame for collecting electronic components dropping from the circuit board. The collector has a plurality of meshes, and the size of each mesh is smaller than that of any electronic component on the circuit board.
The vibrating device includes a support installed on the frame for supporting an end of the circuit board, which is clamped by the clamp, at a predetermined height. The vibrating device includes a groove for accepting the support, and a hook for fixing the support against the groove. The reflow oven, into which the electronic components carrier goes, contains a trigger, which includes a trigger set and a trigger finger, to trigger the support of the vibrating device. One end of the trigger finger is fixed on the trigger set and the other end triggers the support so that the circuit board supported by the support drops on the frame when the temperature inside the reflow oven is higher than the predetermined temperature.
These and other objectives of the claimed invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the invention, which is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.